Give us this day our daily bread

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A blog post over on the Demos website by liberal-in-chief Richard Reeves caught my eye today, entitled ‘Ditch the Alpha Male’ (isn’t this a rather alpha-male way of putting it? I mean, where’s the please?).

Anyway, in the article Mr Reeves persists with his attempts to level society into a homogenous mass of indistinguishable atoms (as liberals are rather wont to do), essentially by suggesting that the best way for us all to be free (and especially for feminists to be free), is to ditch any and all of those roles that might suggest some kind of difference between people, or distinguish one from another. You see, it would appear that for Mr Reeves fixed roles are oppressive, and the only way to become free is to deny them and have everyone do a little bit of everything. In short, homogeneity is what guarantees freedom, and ‘equality’ can only be achieved by making everybody the same.

Hence the testosterone-soaked command to ‘Ditch the Alpha Male’.

Because you see,

Right now, too many men remain stuck with an outdated, breadwinner-based model of masculinity. Until we break this tyrannical custom, men will continue to lead half-lives.

So there we have it. For all you men who greet your role as provider with a feeling of pride, the devotion to which garners an immense amount of satisfaction, for all you men that consider traditional accounts of duty to your family to be no bad thing, and who take immense pleasure in working so your family don’t have to, for all you men that work like a dog because that is what you’ve been wickedly lead to believe is the ‘right’ thing to do – to all of you, Mr Reeves has an announcement, and it is that you’re all the unwitting dupes of a tyrannical custom that shapes your servitude, not defines your freedom.

If this sounds batty then don’t worry, it really is. But not wholly surprising either. Because the liberal these days hates society (and the customs and traditions therein), because the individualism upon which it is built sees society as asserting claims that violate his or her essential freedom. The ‘bread-winner’ is not a role that empowers, that confers authority and respect upon the individual, but is instead a ‘tyrannical custom’, precisely because for the liberal any custom is a chain that binds, and in that sense tyrannical. Indeed, that little phrase sums it up: not just this particular custom, but customs in general.

Mr Reeves also assures us that,

‘Given the rise in life expectancy, we can in fact ‘have it all’ – career, kids, friends, good relationships, voluntary work – and a full life includes all of these things’.

I was always taught to be weary of anybody who tells you that you can have it all – you usually can’t, and the person that promises it usually asks that you give up everything first.